WHAT’S HOT (AND NOT) FOR ’19
Wearable technology in and CrossFit out, according to annual top 10 fitness trends list
Late every fall, the American College of Sports Medicine publishes a list of the top 10 fitness trends for the coming year.
The 2019 edition has few surprises, with wearable technology earning the No. 1 spot. But as interesting as it is to see which trends made the cut, it’s also worth noting which ones didn’t.
Childhood obesity, which was No. 1 in 2007 — the first year the ACSM published the list — didn’t make the top 10 in 2019.
Neither did mind/body exercise and exercise and weight loss. Other trends that have disappeared from the list over the last decade include stability balls, Pilates, Zumba, core training and sport specific training.
Finding their way onto the list in the last few years is body weight training, functional training and wearable technology. Trends that have stood the test of time include yoga, older adults and strength training.
What’s never made it to the top 10? Perhaps the most glaring omission is aerobic conditioning. Think swimming, running and cycling, which are the exercises of choice for millions of fitness fanatics around the globe.
Another mysterious exclusion is CrossFit, the workout that disrupted the fitness industry and paved the way toward the current trend of shorter, high-intensity workouts.
How do the folks at ACSM come up with their list? They reach out to a worldwide sample of certified fitness professionals (2,000 responded to this year’s survey) asking them to rank each of 39 trends on a scale of one to 10 — with one being the least likely and 10 the most likely to be a trend.
Keep in mind that people who work in the fitness industry, not casual observers, are the ones who vote, which means they’re connected to the exercise enthusiasts who drive the trends.
That said, it’s worth noting that the ACSM doesn’t rely on data (number of fitness wearables sold worldwide or the number of runners who competed in road races across all continents) to make the rankings.
Instead, the list represents the opinions of people they feel are in the know. It’s also notable that the ACSM pre-populates the list of trends and asks fitness professionals to rank them, which could lead to some bias. And they’re very clear they want to track trends — not flash-inthe-pan fads (think Tae Bo and hot yoga), which means identifying exercise behaviour that has staying power.
How do trends affect the fitness industry? They drive traffic and revenue to fitness businesses, and in some cases are the reason fitness clubs reinvent themselves. For several decades, group exercise classes were the core of most fitness clubs, with weight-training areas occupying a smaller footprint. Today, most of the real estate in fitness clubs is occupied by equipment. Strength, cardio and functional training units tend to occupy a single common area with people cycling between machines and strength-training equipment.
Gone too are the days when group exercise meant wall-towall people all following a single instructor at the front of the class.
Today’s trend is WODs (workouts of the day), which are posted in gyms and followed on a more individual basis. And while there’s still a tendency for people to work out in groups, they are fashioned in more of a circuit than a follow-the-leader format.
Then there are those workouts that have stood the test of time. Things like yoga, which predates Jane Fonda workouts by centuries, strength training, running, swimming and cycling, and exercises like pushups and sit-ups. To have staying power, workouts/ exercises need to be effective. People exercise for a variety of reasons, but at the end of the day they want to feel fitter, stronger and more agile.
Workouts also need to have something that keeps people coming back for more — which is what drives trends and fads.
The fitness industry is fuelled by the need to find the next best thing. That ever-important it-factor not only creates a buzz, it drives fashion (Lululemon), pop culture (movies like Perfect, G.I. Jane and Pumping Iron) and celebrity (Richard Simmons and Arnold Schwarzenegger).
Admittedly that “it factor” is different for everyone. The bottom line is you need to find your own top 10 ways to work out, even if it means the occasional foray into the latest fad or trend.